IN LOVE WITH A DREAM A Cabaret With Lea Kalisch Comes to New Yiddish Rep, June 19-23

New Yiddish Rep invites you to see Lea Kalisch in her cabaret performance, "In Love with a Dream," to be presented June 19 to 23 at 9:00 PM each night by New Yiddish Rep at Playroom Theater, 151 West 46th Street, 8 fl. Kalisch is a dynamic, sexy, multidisciplinary performer originally from Zurich, Switzerland. The running time is 65 minutes and critics are invited to all performances.

The piece is an autobiography in song, rap and comedy: a high-energy reflection on Ms. Kalisch's clash of expectations and real-life experiences. She is a high-energy brunette twenty-something who recounts, from the perspective of "a new artist with an old soul," her ripening in the five years since she left Switzerland in 2014. There is a memorable comedic sung reflection on love and orthodoxy, in which she appears clad in a velvety doublet and shtreimal (a fur hat worn by many married Haredi Jewish men) and explores the creative repercussions of romance with the religious.

The piece is performed in English, but it is sprinkled with Spanish, Yiddish and German (Kalisch speaks seven languages). She sings, dances and raps and even takes a turn at the piano, where she croons a comedic song over a Bach piece. Her musical compositions are dramatic, theatrical and story-driven. She characterizes their musical genre as "blues-pop with a touch of Jewish." She views herself as a collage artist who is "Jewish with all my heart and Latin with my hips." George Xenos directs.

Ms. Kalisch has hitherto appeared in New Yiddish Rep's productions of "Awake and Sing" and "God of Vengeance," which were both acted in Yiddish. At HERE, she co-created and performed "Between the Threads (Jewish Women Project)." For Folksbiene, she appeared in a staged reading of "Fernvald." She is lead singer of a folk rock band, Revival, which performs music set to Jewish and biblical texts. In Switzerland, she was a professional ice skater for ten years, always enjoying gala-shows much more than competitions.

New Yiddish Rep (www.newyiddishrep.org), led by David Mandelbau, and Amy Coleman, is a developer of a wide array of Yiddish theater-related artistic activities. Its productions since its founding in 2008 include Yiddish renditions of "Death of a Salesman," "Rhinoceros," "God of Vengeance," "Awake and Sing," and "Waiting for Godot" as well as an abundance of plays originating in Yiddish. The company conducts writing and acting workshops to help develop a future generation of Yiddish actors.

COINCIDING EVENT AT PLAYROOM THEATER
At 7:00 PM June 19-23, preceding this 9:00 PM cabaret show, New Yiddish Rep will also present the world premiere of "The Crazy Meshuge Hurricane Earthquake" by Amy Coleman, directed by David Mandelbaum. This six-character play is the story of an unlikely connection that develops between a middle aged non-religious Jewish woman and a young Hasidic man struggling with schizophrenia. A recently retired music teacher, seeking meaning in her life, answers an ad on Craigslist for a job as a live-in caretaker for a schizophrenic young man from the strictly Orthodox community. Because of the stigma of mental illness, he has been abandoned by his family and is drifting in and out of hospitals. As his caretaker, the woman attempts to give him the support he needs, but discovers that her agenda may have more to do with her own needs than his. The play offers important lessons on love and trust. Critics are invited on rafter June 20. Info: www.jsnyc.com/season/crazymeshuge.htm.

For more info on "In Love with a Dream," see: http://www.jsnyc.com/season/kalisch2.htm.

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